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The Southern Israelite Page 3 AMERICAN-JEWISH PERSONALITIES Both to Jew and Gentile, Rabbi Ste phen S. Wise has been something of a mystery. On the one hand, he tells you casually that, at the moment, he hap pens to be preaching more frequently ;n Christian churches than in Hebrew Synagogues. But on the other hand, not less casually, he announces that, whereas the English like to trace their ancestry to the Plantagenets, he is himself content to have in his veins the blood of the prophets Hosea and Mu ah. He is at once racial and mar ginal. a kind of Paul, who, though a Pharisee of the Pharisees, had a mes sage also for mankind. It is one word that explains him. Hr is big. Massive in build, diapason n voice, exuberant in affection, elo- ijuent ' n speech, abounding in energy, irrepressible in indignation, compre hensive in vision, you can no more re train him by tenets or define him by labels than you can formulate the breezes or classify the sunset. You have to take him as God made him fur he is obstinately determined to be nothing else. This is, indeed, the great contribu tion that he has made to the temper ■ f Judaism. Long eras of the diaspora had left many Jews with a curious complex. Within them, there lay a deep pride; but it was suppressed; and in outward conduct, the Jew of this type sought to assimilate him self to his environment. To Rabbi Wise, all that is anathema—let the Jew be a Jew—as good a Jew as he can be. He looks at the English and says " himself that here are people with faults, with virtues, with abilities, •vith limitations, and yet are able to be just what they are, never imitat ing others, whether French, with their grace, or Germans, with their logic, or Italians, with their art. To be or t to be oneself—that is thus the question; and Rabbi Wise has given t no uncertain answer. It is thus in s own way that he is orthodox. To him, heresy does not mean an error n theology. As a crime, it is more in- timate than that. It is disloyalty to > 'ur own being. That man is the arch heretic who blushes for the glory of the Creator within him. Hence, there is but one phrase, at mention of which Rabbi Wise becomes ' Un over a cup of tea, really danger- ."j' to his immediate surroundings. • ude to the melting pot and you will ' "ell to keep your distance. The idea that the United States of menea is a kind of electric stove on '' lca , you deposit a frying pan when aried ingredients are reduced to a asteless amalgam, is to him abhor- l- e k anybody lose his individual ly. m the opinion of Dr. Wise and, » err jerges mutilated. The very flavor !’ character—namely, distinction— n *s been eliminated. , , Wise ’ the United States p , U Plural. Himself born in ^ dapest on March 17th, 1874, he p q d . n , (S no * onI y for the rights of the hV Eur °pean immigrant but for * " v a ue. He sees this country, not in k %ast conti nental uniformity, but whiJh 0Wn wor( ^ as an orchestra, in a thousand cultural instru AS SEEN BY A NON JEW RABBI STEPHEN WISE By P. W. WILSON ments, all diverse from the rest, should render one human symphony. To thine own self be true And it shall follow as the night, the day; Thou canst not then be false to any man. This gospel of self-assertion has to be accepted with its converse insistence on one’s own rights means acknowl edgment of the rights of others, nor can you understand Rabbi Wise un less you see, as it were, both sides of the medal. Take his unusual comradeship with Gentiles. With a clear discernment, he realizes that for the Jew to quarrel with the Christian merely because the Christian reads the Jewish Bible and worships a Jew as God, would be illog ical. On the other hand, for the Chris tian to accuse the Jew of a sole re sponsibility for whatever it was that brought the life of Jesus to an end, is less contrary to the truth of the case. To Rabbi Wise, it is absurd to treat an event, so fundamental to history as the rise of the Christian church, merely as an incident in the anti- Semitic feud. The day of such emotions, however inevitable they may have been, is over. It is the principle of personality that Rabbi Wise applies to the Jewish In stitute of Religion of which he is the founder and president. In Judaism as in Islam and Christianity there are Modernists or Liberals and Fundamen talists, or Conservatives. That Dr. Wise is classed among the Liberals is true enough. But no man holds more strongly than he to the view that tol erance—to use a better word, fellow ship—is a bilateral relation. It is not only the old that should be tolerant to the new. It is the new that should be tolerant to the old. Hence, on the fac ulty for which Dr. Wise is responsible, there are Orthodox Hebrews who bring into the education there pro vided for Rabbis, that heritage of an cient literature out of which, after all, the literature of Christendom has been evolved. It might be supposed that a rabbi, so buoyant as Dr. Wise, so eager to insist upon the self-determination of others than himself, would be incapa ble of making enemies. But, as a mat ter of fact, his autobiography, had he had time to write it, would have been called “my thirty years battle with ministry.” This workaday world is not yet convinced of the thesis on which Dr. Wise has based his entire philosophy. There are Liberal Jews who express disdain for Conservative Jews. There are Conservative Jews who consider that the Liberal Jew is a renegade. As for Jews and Chris tians, it is a case of enough said. In Dr. Wise, there is thus a singu larly awkward sympathy with the un derdog. At the first hint of injustice, the prophetic blood within him boils and he pours forth the magnificent de- MY RABBI By RALPH WILLNER A wonderful man is my Rabbi; A man, that cannot be beat. To meet, and to talk to my Rabbi, Indeed is a wonderful treat. My Rabbi, has lofty Ideals, That form his every speech; I’d sacrifice many a pleasure To hear by beloved Rabbi Preach. My Rabbi, never speaks harshly. No matter how badly he’s hurt; Forever a smile that is beaming, With never a word that’s curt. His face throws the rays of sunshine— Infectious rays of love. That gathers your Soul, so gently. And carriers it up far above. My Rabbi, is kind in his ways; His heart is divided for all— A Mother, with love for her children, A Rabbi, with love for The Scroll. My Rabbi at once is a terror. When speaking to me of my sin. With eyes that pierce right through you; Reminding and pleading for Him. “Transgress not my son, you’ll be passing; Forget not your days are few; Forget not the Mission you’re charged with: The mission of love, like the Dew, That covers the Earth every morning. That quenches the thirst of the land. So must you forever remember Justice, Love, and your hand. Must give, till it hurts to another. Remember an Orphan or two; For God is their shield and protector. He is feeding the Orphan through you. Your troubles are many and weary. Your Soul is tortured with pain. Remember, the clouds are passing And sunshine, will cheer you again.” A wonderful man is my Rabbi, A Spring flowing water so pure; When sick, and the Soul’s depressing My Rabbi will give you a cure. nunciations of an Isaiah. To a highly respected captain of industry like Judge Gary, whose steel workers hap pened to be on strike, it came as a surprise to be told from the pulpit that he was akin to Russian cossacks, and as the Scots would say “bang went” a million dollar synagogue on which, as it happened, the Rabbi—so preaching—had set his heart. Not that he complained—not at all. His action was deliberate and he knew what would be its consequences. There came a great crisis in the career of Rabbi Wise when his fervor and personal charm were bespoken by Temple Emanuel on Fifth Avenue, New York. For a preacher, still young, here was a dazzling opportunity and the authorities were delighted with his trial sermons. But there was a phrase in the proposed agreement, of which Dr. Wise wished to know the precise meaning. He was to be “sub ject to” the Board of Control. It was explained to him that there might be topics on which he would be expected to keep silence, and once more his prophetic blood boiled over. In an open letter, he proclaimed to the world that he would not be “tethered and muz zled.” It was inevitably the end of his appointment to that pulpit. Of Woodrow Wilson, it goes with out saying, he was an enthusiastic follower. Of the merits of the war, he never had a doubt in his mind, and to his congregation, including many Ger man-born, he declared his belief in the Allied cause. That he assisted the cause in many ways, known and un known at the time, is history. For he had been, from the first, a Zionist. To him, a National Home for the Jews in Palestine was a symbol of historic prestige, invaluable to Jews throughout the world. Never could he forget that, as founder of the movement in the United States, he had been told by Herzl that the hope lay in Great Britain. In 1914, it was inconceivable to him that the realiza tion of this hope should be handed to the Jew by the bloodstained hand of the unspeakable Turk. So we see him deep in the counsels which, with Woodrow Wilson’s approval, resulted in the Balfour Declaration. But how does he feel about it now? His spirit, impetuous yet sound in its objective, chafes under the compromises of statesmanship. It is not that he is anything but what he has always been—that is a friend of Great Britain. Yet he cannot regard the studied “impartiality” of Great Britain as a fulfilment of the Balfour Declaration. The reason for that “impartiality” is, he thinks, hon orable to Britain’s intention. She has always been the guardian of the na tives; and of Arab interests, she is thus peculiarly sensitive. But to Dr. Wise, there has never been any ques tion of injustice to the Arab. It was the Zionists themselves who inserted the words in the Balfour Declaration which safeguard Arab interests; and (Continued on Page 7, Col. 4)